Namibia mulls land expropriation within ‘public interest’

NAMIBIAN President Hage Geingob says his country should give ‘careful consideration’ to expropriating land because the principle of having willing buyers and sellers has not delivered results.

‘We can pursue the constitutional mechanisms to achieve land equity,’ he said on Monday at the national land conference in the capital, Windhoek. ‘This position stands, provided expropriation is carried out in the public interest.’

Namibia is among the world’s most economically unequal nations. While only about 6 percent of Namibia’s 2.5 million citizens are white, they own most enterprises. That’s a legacy of white-minority rule SA imposed when it controlled Namibia from World War I to 1990, with black people being disenfranchised and displaced.

The genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama people from 1904 to 1908 following the arrival of German troops, dispossessed Namibians of their land by force and without compensation, Geingob said.